Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jun 2 12:26:44 EDT 1998
Article: 12326 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: What am I paying for?
Date: 2 Jun 1998 12:17:22 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In "koleus" writes:
>What is the rationale for assessing me a higher tax rate because I am
>rich?
Some possibilities:
1. If Croesus and a day laborer both get an extra 10 drachmas,
someone might think the last drachma will matter less to Croesus
because he already has so many, so the world will be more satisfactory
to its inhabitants overall if that drachma is taken as tax from him
rather than the laborer.
2. Since man in a state of nature can only get enough to cover bare
needs, and since large fortunes are not likely to have a clear, simple
and concrete connection to their owner's productive activities and
needs, the larger the fortune the more artificial it seems and so the
more just it appears to take some or a lot of it to cover the cost of
maintaining the structure of artifice known as society and government
that makes the fortune possible.
3. Big inequalities of wealth often lead to ill feeling and make
popular self-government less likely to succeed, so it's good if
taxation and other government activities are carried on in a way that
reduces them.
There are also of course objections to graduated taxes, especially when
they become confiscatory as they sometimes have.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Jun 5 07:55:12 EDT 1998
Article: 12341 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: What am I paying for?
Date: 5 Jun 1998 07:53:12 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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Milton Tinkoff writes:
> Realize that without the system of capitalism, people could not get
> "rich" in the first place. Since the system is what allows some
> people to accumulate wealth, it makes sense that those who benefit
> the most should have to pay to support it the most.
It not true that without the system of capitalism people couldn't get
rich, unless the system of capitalism has been characteristic of
Communist Russia, Pharaonic Egypt, pastoral peoples, and just about
everyone else I can think of except maybe wandering hunter-gatherers.
Also, a system of proportional taxation requires those who benefit the
most to pay to support it the most, and in fact payment appears to be
in proportion to benefit, so I'm not sure why this is an argument for
progressive taxation.
I'm also not sure "rich" is in quotes. Was it because the word seems
to treat having lots of money etc. as a characteristic of persons
rather than of the way the system operates?
Which brings me to the line of thought the post suggests, that since
laws are imaginable that would have kept people from getting rich
personal wealth should be understood as something conferred on people
by a specific system, and since personal wealth is thus a specific
grant of a chosen system it's appropriate for those who have charge of
supervising the system, the rulers, to decide who should have it and
how much. The system does that anyway, someone might say, so why not
have the decision made as thoughtfully, responsibly and justly as
possible?
A problem with this line of thought is that it ignores the political
necessity of limiting government. On this view everything government
could have changed becomes an act of the system and therefore of
government, because government inaction is a sort of action, and
therefore an appropriate object of government administration. Seems
like a bad way to look at politics, but steeply progressive tax rates
lend a lot of practical support to it. I may of course be reading too
much into the post. If so, some clarification as to which things that
would be different if the laws were different are not actions of the
system or which actions of the system should not be subject to
goverment control would be helpful.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
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Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 10:16:46 -0500
Organization: The Free Lance Academy (bbs) 201-963-6019
Subject: re: changing circumstances
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Status: RO
jgrant@acad.udallas.edu (John W. Grant) writes:
> As I am sure everybody knows, in the ancient city law was understood
> to be of divine origin ... In the ancient city, ties were of blood.
I am uncertain of the connection between these propositions. Also,
Rome was not settled by men of common blood, so it seems false that "In
the ancient city, ties were of blood."
> The state of nature doctrine and the social contract theory which
> accompanies it is the answer to the theological-political problem
> posed by Christianity.
In pre-Christian Iceland there was a comparatively benign (Lockean
rather than Hobbesian) state of nature leading to establishment of
institutions of government through social contract. The formal
institutions didn't have much to do with blood ties or divine origin,
although blood ties and religion were of course important at the time,
especially the former.
The theological-political problem posed by Christianity in Iceland was
that the Church liked hierarchy, in politics as in religion, so lack of
an anointed king was an issue. It made it hard to think of Iceland as
part of the cosmic order as understood by the Church. From this
perspective Locke looks rather like a product of attitudes toward
goverment, society and man characteristic of Northwestern Europe that
were incorporated into the common law and English political
institutions but had nothing special to do with Christianity. I don't
know whether pre-Christian Iceland counts as an ancient city, but it
does seem to me that our political institutions and culture today stem
from those of the people who happened to be around when those things
were developing as well as from the institutions and culture of the
ancient Mediterranean.
> what binds us together now as a polity is the acceptance of the
> principles of the Declaration of Independence. This trans-ethnic
> bond transcends the ties of blood that were hitherto the ground of
> political association (cf. Matthew 12:49 and context) ... government
> is established by the just consent of the governed for limited ends.
> These ends are of necessity limited because regimes are particular
> while Christianity is universal, necessitating a private realm.
If trans-ethnic universal principles are the basis of the regime why is
the regime particular?
> Those who oppose this conception from the right, so-called
> paleo-conservatives, wish the impossible-they desire to reestablish
> bonds of blood as the sole ground of community. Their attempt to
> promote tribalism can only end in tragedy for minorities, whether
> those be racial minorities or religious minorities.
Your point seems to be that the alternative (at least from the right --
I'm not sure what the left alternative would be) to basing political
society solely on common consent to the universal principles of the
Declaration is basing community solely on blood. I find the stark
alternative an artificial one. I can't think of anyone to the left of
the National Socialist White People's Party who proposes or implicitly
favors making blood the sole ground of community. Community is
normally thought to be a mixture of things, as human life is a mixture
of things, from the prerational and physical (blood, physical
proximity) to the highly conceptual (common adherence to given
principles).
It seems to me the obvious view is that regimes are particular, because
political peoples are particular, and that political peoples grow up
historically and are bound together by some combination of the things
people understand as constituting their identity -- history, culture,
religion, descent, and so on. All those things therefore have some
relevance to political life. I don't understand the paleos to be
making more than that point, in opposition to a view that I think is
extreme but widely accepted that political community ought to be based
solely on ideology. Some of your language makes it sound as if the
latter is your view. If so you should consider what it can lead to.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
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Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 10:53:03 -0500
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Subject: re: changing circumstances
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jgrant@acad.udallas.edu (John Grant) writes:
> Why can't universal principles be the foundation for a particular
> polity?
Universal principles are part of the foundation of every polity, for
example that man is a social animal, that loyalty is a virtue to those
to whom one is affiliated by birth, rearing and the web of mutual
benefit and sacrifice within which he has carried on his life, that in
disobeying the laws of one's people he is turning against something
through which he becomes human.
There are also I agree other universal principles that ought to be part
of the foundation of every polity, for example the principle that man
is not merely social, that every man is a moral agent whose voluntary
cooperation is necessary to realization of the good. That principle
does give a sort of bias toward freedom and equality but it doesn't
*determine* much. I suppose it determines that there's something wrong
with a society in which some human beings are treated as raw material
for fertilizer factories or otherwise as mere property subject to the
_ius utere et abutere_. Nonetheless, authority and hierarchy are
inevitable, necessary and beneficial, and whether they are based on
votes, SAT scores, techno-therapeutic expertise, qualification for
affirmative action preferences, dedication to the principles of the
Declaration, Christian orthodoxy or noble blood seems abstractly a
matter of prudence and concretely a matter of the needs, habits and
ethical understandings of the particular people. Such things can
become refined and extended and gain the coherence necessary for a
tolerably free and amicable public life only through tradition.
Perhaps the question is whether a particular polity can be based solely
on universal principles. The Christian answer to that question is I
think no, not until the Kingdom when we no longer see through a glass
darkly but face to face. Until that time every concrete way of life
and polity will have an essential element of the conventional,
historically contingent and arbitrary, and we won't be able to imagine
anything else clearly enough to make it a goal. In the here and now,
we should be loyal to our own because our own is what makes us what we
are and is necessary for us to attain whatever degree of humanity and
knowledge and realization of the good is possible. Our own minds can
play us false; nonetheless we can't put them aside and draw directly on
the absolute at least not in any comprehensive and continuous way.
Something of the same is true in connection with our own culture.
The claim to have full possession of universal principles sufficient to
construct a polity strikes me as outrageously arrogant and dangerous.
If there were a polity based on such principles what right would other
separate polities have to exist? Wouldn't it be their role simply to
submit to the embodiment of Truth? And what would the position of
dissenters be? Your rhetoric regarding Bradford, Eliot, the Southern
Agrarians and so on is really alarming. In America in 1998 to say a
man's view "has the same inner identity as Hitler's 'volk'" is as much
as to say he's the Devil. If murderous politics gives you a problem
then you should be careful of thinking that leads to habitual use of
extreme derogatory language.
> With no principle and only "shared experience" as a bond, one winds
> up with tribalism as in the Balkans.
And with no shared experience and only principle as a bond one winds up
with political correctness or worse tyranny as in the Soviet Union or
for that matter Nazi Germany -- national socialism after all was
consciously revolutionary, and biological racism and the principle that
the will of the Fuehrer is the will of the German people and the
ultimate law had nothing much to do with shared experience. A society
that puts people in military uniforms and murders very large numbers of
people in new, surprising and technically and administratively advanced
ways isn't based on shared experience.
Perhaps one could balance principle and shared experience? That
wouldn't give you a constructed society justified by universally valid
principles that definitively solve the theo-political problem, because
it would have essential elements that are not at all reducible to
principle, but it might fit humanity better than the other
possibilities.
> Paleos deny that principle has any place at all.
I haven't read Bradford. Certainly what you say is false as to other
people called paleos.
> Of course in America you have universal principles as our particular
> tradition.
That's the basic problem in the American political tradition -- the
conflict between the particularity of the American people and the
universality of the principles proclaimed as the basis of the American
political order. For a long time the problem was fudged by limited
government, which restricted the role of government institutions based
on universal principles, and by various things that inhibited the
rational extension of those principles, for example American
intellectual conformity and aversion to theory, and the practical
success of American institutions more or less as they stood. Those
moderating influences aren't working any more, and the American
political tradition is therefore dying. It's hard to know how it can
exist without a special relation between the American government and a
coherent American people that has now been declared oppressive in
concept and anyway nonexistent. Instead, America is becoming the
center of a world imperial order based on universal principles with no
connection to any particular people that more and more in fact
constitutes the ideology of a worldwide ruling class.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
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Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 13:09:43 -0500
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Subject: re: changing circumstances
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Status: RO
jgrant@acad.udallas.edu (John Grant) writes:
> OK, but what if the polity refuses to recognize universal principles
> in its foundations?
"What happens if there are big overarching problems?" A good question,
in a sense, but I'm not sure what you're looking for. Some things that
come to mind:
1. One can't think well about the most basic and comprehensive issues
by attempting to adopt an artificial viewpoint based on what is taken
to be an adequate set of clearly formulated fundamental principles.
All one can do is draw on all his perceptions and experience to build
on existing habits and understandings. People do convert, get born
again, whatever, but such things are an act of the whole man and not a
consequence of reasoning from explicit principles. Man is a creature
of habits, memories, intuitions and so so as well as abstract reason
and can't be improved into something fundamentally different.
2. All these perceptions, habits etc. of course affect each other.
Existing understandings include principles, but the principles have
contexts, histories and implicit limitations. That's why to reason
well about what is good one must already be a good man. What do you do
if you don't happen to be a good man already, because you were badly
brought up say? You do your best. To exist at all a man or society
must be more good than bad, so the advice is not hopeless. If there is
an objective right and wrong that shows us how to lead the good life
then it seems that all roads ought to lead there if honestly pursued.
3. It is always possible at least abstractly that one's own polity
might be radically ill-constituted. However, adoption of an articulate
universal philosophy that tells us comprehensively what a polity should
be is not a solution. That only substitutes the problem of the
ignorant, wicked or lunatic individual or faction for the problem of
the ignorant, wicked or lunatic society. I don't see why that's a
lesser problem. As a practical matter ideologues don't necessarily or
even likely have as good a grip on things as the societies they
denounce.
> Second, do you really think that the choice between
> "techno-therapeutic expertise" and the principles of the Declaration
> is merely a matter of prudence? I do not. I do not think this
> because I don't ever think that some men are born with saddles on
> their back and other men born to ride them.
I said that choosing rulers based on possession of the first or
adherence to the latter is a matter of prudence. I can imagine
situations in which a ruler characterized by either might be better
than one characterized by the other. Neither constitutes the whole of
political wisdom, and which deficiencies are most damaging depends on
circumstances.
I don't see what a natural right to rule attached to particular men has
to do with the question. As I understand it, the purpose of
techno-therapeutic expertise is as far as possible to allow all
individuals equally to follow their impulses, whatever they happen to
be, consistent with the success of a rational impersonal order that
facilitates impulse satisfaction while minimizing conflict and the need
for common moral understandings. So it's just another way of securing
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but one that relies less on
private property and more on expert administrators (who owe their
position, by the way, not to birth but to training and appointment as
functionaries).
I agree that there are no men born with saddles on their back and other
men born to ride them. It follows that rule should not be simply for
the benefit of the rulers. No argument from me on that. I don't see
any special relevance though to whether say a particular hereditary
nobility with political power is good or bad. It does follow I think
that chattel slavery is a problem.
> Our polity is based on universal principles but why is this
> arrogant? Why does it mean other nations do not have a right to
> exist? Remember, the universal principles upon which this country
> was founded declare that all men are created equal with the same
> inalienable rights-Americans are bound to respect these rights no
> matter who they are dealing with. But this particular polity is
> dedicated to securing the safety and happiness of Americans, not of
> everyone. It is dedicated to securing the safety and happiness of
> those who are bound together in our nation by the principles of the
> Declaration.
How do Americans become a particular people with their own government?
Shared experience, let alone common descent, doesn't seem to be the
answer for you. You don't suggest that geography is the answer and
it's not clear to me why it would be. Consent doesn't seem to be the
answer either, because the South did not consent in 1861 to be part of
the American polity any more than the Americans had consented in 1776
to be part of the British polity. You suggested I think that lack of
consent on the part of the South didn't count because equality is more
basic than consent. On the other hand, the whole world is inhabited by
equals. So I'm not clear what for you is the thing that limits the
jurisdiction of a government established in accordance with the
principles of the Declaration to a particular patch of ground and group
of people.
> I am a little confused, because your earlier posts expressed
> reservations that America was founded on principles that were too low
> (Lockian etc.). Now these same principles are dangerously utopian?
Utopia can be based on high or low principles. Both the New Jerusalem
and Hog Heaven are utopias.
> If you read Eliot's poem "Bleistein" you can see the disgusting
> anti-semitism and how close it is to Nazi propaganda produced only
> several years later ... How about those men like Kirk and Bradford
> who consider Eliot and Lytle to be heroes of the modern day
> conservative movement and say so in their books? That seems much
> more dangerous ...
I know little of Lytle. As to "Burbank with a Baedeker, Bleistein with
a Cigar" it seems odd to me to give so much weight to a few lines in a
series of images that constitute a poem. I don't understand the demand
for purity. Life is hard, the world's a mess, and poetry finds it
difficult always to be responsible.
Suppose someone in 1920 wrote a poem that among other things had a
revolting image of a grasping, ignorant, brutal peasant. Would you
view praise of the poet for things that have nothing particular to do
with the poem as dangerous, because of the liquidation of the kulaks?
Or if purity is the standard, Jefferson liked the French Revolution and
the French Revolution ought to be a problem for those who dislike
large-scale murder of innocents. He also owned slaves and said
unpleasant things about blacks and pessimistic things about black-white
relations. So does that pollute the Declaration?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
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From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: One slight detail...
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <060501bd9606$ca7de3a0$b3f463ce@sethwill> from "Seth Williamson"
at Jun 12, 98 09:34:11 am
Status: RO
> For the piece below, Reuters rounded up the usual suspects to
> denounce the Baptist troglodytes.
For some reason I found the commentary on this, not just Reuters but
everyone else as well, even more depressing than usual. Maybe it's the
invincible bland assumption that we know better than everyone else
who's ever lived just what the relations of the sexes should be like.
After all, the new format is really working great, men and women are
happy and it's done wonders for the kids, so if Paul or someone seems
to suggest something else he can't really be understood that way. Or
maybe it's the absolute obliviousness to what lies behind the modern
view that authority is the same as exploitation, the belief that there
are no objective common goods that we all can work toward, just
particular conflicting desires that particular people happen to have.
Why adopting that view makes Christianity better escapes me but what do
I know, I'm not a scholar.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Tue Jun 23 08:24:15 1998
Subject: Re: Tradition in America
To: rc
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 08:24:15 -0400 (EDT)
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Status: RO
Hello!
Thanks for the comments -- better late than never, for sure. Also,
better severe criticism than rave reviews.
> What's disturbing about this essay is that you seem not to come back
> explicitly to the question you pose in this first paragraph.
I thought of the whole subsequent essay as the answer -- how it is that
America is both liberal and conservative, and what the consequences are.
You raise an interesting compositional issue, though. In my essay on
Iceland for example I start off with questions that are answered even
less explicitly if at all and are intended to provide the setting for
the discussion that follows. There I put in a verbal flag indicating the
function of the questions though. It's something I'll think about.
> the United States is a conservative nation, but a liberal state.
Also, all nations are conservative, all liberal states are parasitic on
the conservative nations they rule, and all liberal regimes are
internally conservative, since they must maintain their own essence over
time. Since I was writing for Swedes I hoped to say something of general
applicability.
> And what makes it as intractable as it is, is that this is not a
> simple opposition between society and state, as (say) the anarchists
> (or Samuel Francis, for that matter) would make it out to be. For
> the valorization of the liberal state has been part of the tradition
> of the American nation, due in large part to its predominantly
> European--and in particular, Anglo-Celtic--character.
Just so. "People for the American Way" is a _reductio ad absurdum_, but
no joke. In the piece on Iceland I mull over Germanic-Celtic tradition,
and conclude that the valorization of individual freedom and the
contractual state is OK as long as the contractual state doesn't do much
-- doesn't purport to provide a comprehensive way of life -- and
therefore remains open to the transcendent and dependent on prepolitical
institutions like family, friendship and honor. Most likely that
requires substantial pre-political ethnic and religious cohesiveness.
> So the paradox of the established, conservative liberalism of the
> United States is that, in order for liberalism to maintain a stable
> social order in the way that it has, it must have itself accepted as
> a tradition (or a "tradition"--I'll explain the scare quotes in a
> moment).
And also must not be too clearheaded or too successful.
> If one wants to distinguish tradition proper from "traditions" such
> as the established liberalism of the United States, one has to have
> some sort of criterion. I don't think that contrasting technological
> thinking (or instrumental rationality, to speak with the Frankfurt
> School) with the habitual and affective bases of a community goes far
> enough ...
I suppose one could define tradition as a set of practices and attitudes
that defines a community and makes its fundamental orientation
concretely applicable and coherent over time. That would be a formal
definition and would apply among other things to liberalism. Then there
would also be a substantive definition of Tradition as tradition that is
based on a fundamental orientation consistent with the good for man.
To avoid fideism one would like to unify the two definitions. Following
procedures that are rationally correct (formal definition) ought
eventually to give you the right answer (substantive definition).
Wherever you start you ought somehow to be able to end up where you
should be. One might bridge the gap by saying that man has a given
nature and thus a coherent given good, so something that satisfies the
formal definition of tradition will either become part of Tradition by
orienting itself toward that good, or will destroy itself by
contradicting human nature at too many points. Liberalism is now doing
the latter.
A related point would be that a "tradition" like liberalism that
satisfies the first but not second definition can't really be the
tradition of a community because it can't sustain the community's life.
To exist at all a way of life must predominantly accord with human
nature. Liberalism, the view that makes getting one's own way the
_summum bonum_, will therefore always be parasitic.
> If being able to draw on the prerational and the superrational are
> ways of knowing, then there has to be a rigor proper to those ways of
> knowing. It won't be the "logical," "rational" rigor of instrumental
> rationality, but there will be a rigor, an adherence to "the things
> themselves." Isn't the task of traditionalism in the present time to
> discover explicitly this other rigor?
The rigor I attributed to liberalism, at least as its ideal standard, is
explicit formal rigor, the sort of thing the modern natural sciences
aspire to and mathematics actually achieves to the extent it can be
fully formalized. It's a rigor that ideally has no personal element and
exhausts its object. Traditional disciplines are different. They point
to something beyond themselves and train the person to make him capable
of that thing. It's the difference between chemical analysis of a
painting and its aesthetic comprehension. The latter is more rigorously
demanding but it's hard to demonstrate that's so to just anyone.
> it's too easy to slip from an (entirely necessary) emphasis on the
> particularity and concreteness of traditions to a disparagement of
> any comparative treatment of traditions as useless abstraction (a
> disparagement to which the anti-intellectualism of American
> conservatism is conducive).
Fair enough. I suppose one worry is that someone will end up thinking
of tradition as the ore and comparative studies as the extraction
process that gives you the gold, after which you don't really need the
ore any more and attachment to a particular ore becomes a sentimental
prejudice. How does one keep the comparative treatment subordinate? The
temptation to treat what appears and is intended to be rationally
universal as superior is very strong. The point of tradition though is
that God is not available to us in explicit rational universal form
because for us the rational and universal is opposed to the concrete.
It follows that what appears to be universal and superior is in fact
not so.
Also, one could worry that comparative study of traditions could become
an academic social science. How does one keep organized rigorous study
of the Good that intends to be comprehensive from assimilating to the
modern academic world that abstracts from all particular understandings
of the Good and therefore analyzes and organizes all knowledge in the
way that makes it most readily useable for any goal whatever, that is
for manipulation for arbitrary ends?
> I think one can speak of Tradition, the common structure and content
> of the several traditions that comes to light through a comparative
> examination of the several traditions. This is what the integral
> traditionalists such as Guenon and Evola and Coomaraswamy do; this is
> what compatible approaches in the academic realm such as those of
> Eliade and Dumezil do.
Here I must reveal that I've read very little of them. I've read part of
Schuon's book on Islam, which seemed to me very intelligent, and a few
pieces by Evola that have been put in German and posted to _Kshatriya
gegen die moderne Welt_. A gap I must fill I know. (A piece of low
curiosity -- I understand from the _Kshatriya_ email newsletter that
Schuon died just recently, and that his reputation had somehow been
clouded by "l'Affaire Schuon." Have you any idea what that is?)
> (By the way, there's a section in Dumezil's _Mitra-Varuna_ on the
> eclipse of Tyr in Norse paganism that may be pertinent to your essay
> on Iceland.)
Thanks -- will look.
> I think this comparative approach to tradition is entirely necessary
> nowadays, because it's through this comparison that one can recover
> what is traditional in one's particular, concrete tradition,
> especially the sense of rigor that belongs to traditional thought.
> It is in this way that one will be able to sift out what is
> traditional from what is "traditional" (such as established
> liberalism).
There's certainly something to this. If the view believed rational is
"tradition is dumb" then it seems that an explicit rational theory that
says "tradition is smart" and distinguishes true from bogus tradition
would be useful. I suppose your point is that if I say "conservatives
must become theoretically competent," as I do, then I can recognize but
must not overemphasize the particularity of tradition. I must also
recognize a comprehensive science of tradition, at least one that aids
and defends tradition although it can not substitute for or fully
understand it.
> I don't see why it's not possible for there to be a traditional mode
> of argumentation, one which respects and calls for respect for the
> mystery at the heart of every tradition.
I'm not sure how useful a mode of argumentation that in principle draws
indifferently on every tradition could be apart from debunking
antitraditionalism, defending tradition in general against objections,
telling people to become traditional, and so on. That in itself would
be very useful of course.
> There's always going to be a slippage between the mystery--which is
> indeed unsayable, in the sense that no words can exhaust it--and what
> one can say of it, and this slippage becomes especially apparent when
> one is up against those who deny or ignore the mystery.
It's a problem. The liberal objection is that the Right is intolerant,
arbitrary and oppressive, that they insist on things for no reason that
can be stated publicly and accepted by all but simply on account of
their own interests, prejudices or love of power. That's what "mystery"
comes down to from the liberal perspective. One response is to show
that liberalism is no better off. A concrete liberal state will not in
fact equally advance all preferences but will sacrifice some to others
without even the excuse that there's something better about the ones
that are favored. Some would be happier is marriage were an
institution, for example, others if it weren't. There's no way equally
to advance both preferences.
> It seems to me that there used to be traditional affection for one's
> state or region, back when federalism was better understood.
> Wouldn't neo-Confederates be an instance of traditionalists who don't
> appeal to these symbols of unitary nationalism?
Maybe the big problem is that since war is a federal monopoly the
symbols men die for are federal symbols. The symbols men die for trump
all other political symbols. So it's very hard to make something like
American federalism work. The neoconfederates also have symbols men
have died for but that was 130+ years ago. Also, neoconfederate symbols
don't do much for anyone anyplace else.
> The contractual nature of the federal government is certainly true,
> but has it always or primarily been true of the several states?
I am assured the state constitutions of the Founding Era are full of
Lockean rhetoric. When the colonies were refounded as states did they
stay the same as what they were? And what had they been? Nothing very
primordial or autochthonous I think. Also, 37 of the state governments
are federal creations -- they were established post-1787 on federal
territory following federal procedures. Maybe Virginia, the Carolinas
and Georgia as they are now are federal creations too since they were
reconstructed after 1865. So that would make 41 out of 50.
> But weren't state governments more closely tied to popular habits and
> customs, and so at least capable of being more traditional? And
> wasn't this supra-contractual bond between the states and their
> governments federally protected (as far as they could be) by such as
> the Tenth Amendment?
It's an interesting question to which I don't know the whole answer.
Certainly the non-contractarian aspects of government, the police power
with respect to morals and the like, were concentrated at the state
level. The federal government was more obviously and explicitly
contractual. State religious establishments survived I believe into the
1830s or thereabouts. I don't think the non-contractarian aspects of
government were theorized though. Also, I think the 10th a. was
intended more to keep the federal contract strictly contractual than
wittingly to protect anything noncontractual.
> more a Bohemian than a Tory
Mostly I think Kirk was self-indulgent. I have a hard time reading him.
> I think there's much to be said for the contention of the integral
> traditionalists that we are living in the _Kali Yuga_. And if that's
> so (even if not to the extent that Guenon and Evola would say it is),
> then traditionalist conservatism has to take on something of a
> prospective approach. It must not only preserve but also _restore_
> traditions. And the best way for one to prepare for such
> restorations (and to the extent that traditions are gifts from above,
> an anticipatory preparation is perhaps all one can do) is, I think,
> to recover a sense of what tradition is through a comparative
> approach to tradition in general.
There's certainly something to this. My own inclination is to think
that traditionalism is natural to man, so the preparatory work is
mostly understanding what's wrong with antitraditionalism and learning
right acceptance.
> > the outstanding critics Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More, were
> > cosmopolitan humanists rather than particularists
>
> But isn't that simply to say that Babbitt and More appealed only to
> _part_ of tradition, rather than to the whole ball of wax? Premodern
> conceptions of reason emerged from and retained ties to traditional
> modes of thought, even if they were part of a movement to supplant
> tradition with reason.
They didn't think they were appealing to tradition though. Babbitt in
particular is definite that his method is wholly positive. Whether that
means they were adherents of "tradition" or of Tradition not fully
understood is something one might argue about. I would say the latter,
that they were pointed in the right direction.
Thanks again for the comments -- they were very helpful. After the
discussion I will look again to see if anything should be changed in
the piece before it is published this fall.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jun 24 05:29:20 EDT 1998
Article: 12417 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Words on Nisbet?
Date: 23 Jun 1998 10:29:54 -0400
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Chris Faatz writes:
> Enough reviling of Barry. Anyone have any thoughts on Robert Nisbet?
His short book on conservatism, entitled I think _Conservatism_, is a
good summary of the tendency. My impression is that he's stronger on
theory than on concrete political judgements but I haven't read enough
for more than an impression.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Sat Jun 27 16:29:29 1998
Subject: Re: the politics of space and the space of politics
To: ao
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 16:29:29 -0400 (EDT)
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I wrote the Scorpion article about 3 years ago and it was intended to
be speculative. I do think there's something to it, though.
Your comments suggest a struggle between the global system, basically
as it is now only more developed, and say the Amish. The world's more
dynamic than that. To my mind the issue is whether there's something
about the global system radically at odds with human nature such that
it can't maintain efficiency or even last long term, and if so what is
most likely to replace it.
It seems that advanced liberalism is the natural ideology for the
global system. Total immediate presence of every point to every other
point means that small-scale social cohesion, particularist memories
and loyalties, local variations and traditions, all have to go. The
only available organizing principle will be the universal market as
shaped, regulated and modified by the universal bureaucracy. Since a
particularized understanding of the Good will be socially impossible
the highest goal will be giving people what they want, as much and as
equally as possible. Plus of course maintaining the system itself, a
goal which may be difficult to distinguish in practice from maintaining
the personal power of the ruling class.
However -- it will be impossible I think for a global society based on
such a conception to last any great length of time. One basic problem
is that it can provide no reason or motivation for self-sacrifice.
That's a major problem, since it is impossible to make a society that
is a machine functioning without regard to the quality of its members.
If there's no basis for self-sacrifice there's no reason in general for
public officials, political parties, journalists, experts, what have
you to remain honest or efficient. The Clinton Administration and its
hangers-on are only a hint of what is to come. Nor will there be a
reason for those responsible for public safety to put themselves on the
line for the public safety. It is already a basic principle of
American imperialism that U.S. forces can suffer no significant
casualties. The situation is of course exacerbated by the feminization
of the public safety forces.
Further, in a society without sacrifice there can be no sufficient
basis for family life -- for loyalty between husbands and wives and
children, or for parental authority. Already we see the abolition of
the family as a social institution, as evidenced by divorce on demand,
legitimization of sexual libertinism, homosexual "marriage," the
abolition of gender as a principle of social organization (that's what
laws against sex discrimination mean, after all), etc. We see as well
the initial fruits of that abolition in sub-replacement birth rates,
declining child welfare, and so on.
It seems these are not just growing pains but follow directly from
fundamental principles that will only grow catastrophically clearer as
time goes on. Government-funded therapy won't do the trick and turn
things around. So it seems that as time goes on the global system will
grow less and less efficient, more and more corrupt, and less and less
able to achieve either its own goals or minimal standards of order and
decency. Eventually it won't work at all -- the police won't police,
social services won't serve, and nothing will be obtainable through the
public market. If so, people will turn to anything that promises a
better or even tolerable life.
What can provide that? If the driving force of the New Order that
makes it necessary and irresistible is indeed universal instant
broadband communication, then it seems the only thing capable of
providing a better life will be separation. If that's what's needed
then people will do it if at all possible. I don't see why it won't
be. I also don't see why the state would seriously oppose it -- by the
time separation becomes a significant issue the state will be having
its own problems, and will be happy for any source of order it can get.
If the Amish give them no trouble and pay their taxes, they'll be happy
to get the Amish. Especially in comparison with everyone else.
> Yes you could do it but you would be surrounded by the globalization
> you are trying to avoid and the intrusions of that trend will always
> be with with you. Your children will constantly be exposed to it and
> your situation would be one of gradual attrition.
The Amish have been keeping 80% of their numerous children. Having no
radios, TVs, cars, telephones etc. is a big help. Strictly Orthodox
Jews have been growing enormously in number as well. They don't watch
the tube either. So the intrusions and attrition don't seem to be
inevitable if the measures adopted are radical enough.
> Also like the Amish, your existance will be tollerated as a means by
> which the larger global forces could use your existance as an
> commody. As the Amish are a tourist attraction, and are tollerated
> only because their way of life is seen as nonthreatening and easy to
> exploit by the surrounding powers that be.
Strictly Orthodox Jews aren't a tourist attraction and in fact no one
much likes them. There are indeed problems, though, for example the
tendency of the liberal state to appoint itself guardian of children's
interests as it construes them in opposition to what their parents
think good. On the other hand, it's not that hard to be
nonthreatening, and I expect corruption and inefficiency to greatly
mitigate tyranny.
> Separatism can only succede with you can put space... actual space...
> both in regard to distance and the distance of communication which
> allow a gap of communication time... between your community and the
> forces you desire to seperate f
Middle Eastern society has typically been separatists with different
communities living cheek-by-jowl. Virtual space can be created by not
communicating. I don't see why it can't be done. Territorial states
with a public life generally open to those inhabiting the territory
have been the exception. Dynastic empires, government as a private
matter for the powerful with the life of the people going on behind
high walls, have been more common. I prefer the civilization of Europe
too, but I'm not sure how it will be possible to carry on anything of
the kind in the future.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Jul 6 06:14:11 EDT 1998
Article: 12471 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Words on Nisbet?
Date: 5 Jul 1998 14:13:10 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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In Chris Faatz writes:
>: Much interesting and surprising material. For example, he held that
>: abortion is a family matter and no concern of the State, a rare
>: conservative position.
>And a true conservative one, if one believes that moral matters are
>the domain of the intermediate institutions between the individual and
>the state.
Sounds like a rather artificially constructed conservatism to me. It's
not as if laws against abortion are a recent thing invented by
statists. It was a crime at common law.
Plainly the state has to be concerned with moral matters, in accordance
with its appropriate role. Moral matters after all are part of the
public good which the state exists to facilitate and defend. A view of
the state as an artifice concerned only with defence of person and
property or individual rights or whatever so that individuals and
groups can go for whatever it is they happen to want without tripping
over each other, for example for morality if that happens to be their
thing, is not at all conservative. The state of course can't do
everything, and in many things it can't do much directly, and
individual, group and local autonomy is important, but it can't be
indifferent to fundamental moral issues.
If the worry is that the state is going to declare independence of
society, and then reconstruct society along the lines it prefers, then
something like Roe v. Wade seems to me more worrisome than permitting
the state to continue its ancient practice of exercising its police
power in opposition to direct killing of the unborn.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Mon Jul 6 07:28:07 EDT 1998
Article: 12475 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Words on Nisbet?
Date: 6 Jul 1998 07:27:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
> Although conservatives, generally from the same camps as the
> opponents of abortion, oppose euthanasia or assisted suicide, the
> emphasis is on preventing the extension of the activity rather than
> (as in the abortion case) seeking to reverse existing liberal
> legislation and recriminalize what
> has been decriminalized.
>
> Any thoughts on the reasons for the difference of approach?
One distinction is that when suicide is successful there is no one to
put in the dock. Another is that criminal law seems less relevant in
the case of an action that is in itself against the interests of the
actor as normally understood and does not in itself concretely injure
something valuable other than the actor. The view that crime is its own
punishment seems particularly forceful in the case of suicide.
> The abortion issue, after all, is not a matter of sexual morality,
> but concerns ideas about the sovereignty of the individual versus
> ideas about the protection of God-given rights of defenceless others.
> and there is an identical issue in the suicide case (the liberal view
> denies the existence of an 'other' in both cases).
I don't see how suicide in itself involves the rights of defenseless
others. Also, abortion does involve sexual morality. The traditional
understanding of sexual morality has to do with the view that sex has a
specific nature and function, the creation of new life and
strengthening of the setting in which that life can develop and
florish. Abortion denies the overriding value of new life and is thus
the grossest possible assault on the foundation of sexual morality.
> All the more puzzling in that there is also an objection to suicide
> that can be held both by liberals and conservatives, by the religious
> and the atheistic, in terms of the effects of the act on third
> parties, which is usually less of an issue in the abortion case.
The effect on third parties is highly contingent and mostly reproduces
effects of other legal actions that might be motivated by radical
discontent with the course of one's life. If Breadwinner Joe stops
showing up at work because he's dead the economic effect on wife and
kiddies is likely to be similar to what would happen if he stopped
showing up because he was drunk all the time or simply stopped getting
out of bed in the morning. As to the effect of legal abortion on third
parties all recognize, it's a radical denial of the father's interest
in his unborn child. It's hard to deny such an interest exists and is
important since the law turns it into an unbreakable open-ended
obligation should mom choose to keep the child.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Sun Jul 5 22:42:10 1998
Subject: Re: Progressives vs. Traditionalists
To: gt
Date: Sun, 5 Jul 1998 22:42:10 -0400 (EDT)
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> The progressive view appeals to those who gain from central
> bureaucratic rule. These include the academically credentialed;
> social scientists and other "experts"; lawyers, especially judges,
> legal scholars and leaders of the elite bar; elite journalists, whose
> importance increases as more things are treated as national public
> policy issues; and religious leaders who identify with national
> elites and want to be respectable and comfortable as well as
> prophetic. They also include those with an uneasy relationship to the
> traditional and informal institutions bureaucratic rule supplants --
> many blacks, recent immigrants, unmarried persons, secular Jews and
> artists, and homosexuals and others unable or unwilling to live in
> accordance with traditional moral standards.
> To summarily heap 'many' blacks, 'secular' Jews, and homosexuals into
> the same camp is to commit the fallacy of hasty generalization, a
> defect in argument that not only undermines your cognitive
> credentials, but also leaves you wide open to charges of racism and
> anti-semitism, and does rude injustice to those good Black and Jewish
> citizens who have nothing to do with that perverted minority.
"Many" modifies everything up to "artists." It seems to me clear that
on average blacks and secular Jews are more likely than most to support
big government and liberal social programs, and that one reason is the
one given, that both groups have an uneasy relation to the traditional
institutions of a predominantly white and Christian society. Do you
disagree? Do you believe that the view just stated is racist or
antisemitic, so that it would be odd for a black or Jewish person to
say "I'm a progressive who favors liberal social programs, and one
reason is that people like me have an uneasy relation to the
traditional institutions of a predominantly white and Christian
society"? I put many blacks and Jews it is true in the same general
camp as the academically credentialed, judges, elite journalists and
others as well. If that makes me racist or antisemitic then it's very
easy to become racist or antisemitic.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Mon Jul 6 15:44:57 1998
Subject: Re: Spleen Ventilation
To: gt
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1998 15:44:58 -0400 (EDT)
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> > "Many" modifies everything up to "artists." (#1. It appears that
> you are backpeddling here. "Many" is "Majority" not so cleverly
> disguised.
No backpeddling, and "many" indicates a general tendency while leaving
proportions vague. It does not at all mean "most."
> You still have that "...and homosexuals and others" tagged onto the
> end of the sentence in question, which besmirches the whole.)
Separated by ", and" to show they are a different category, just as
"the academically credentialed" were a different category.
> I disagree with your reason, which is an "uneasy relation to the
> institutions of a predominately white and Christian society." Are
> White and Christian synonymous? Are these two terms joined as
> Siamese twins, to the exclusion of other possible >fill in the blank
> with a color< and Christian combinations?
They describe the actual traditions predominant in America. To talk
about tradition is to talk about something fairly specific. There is
no tradition in general. Chinese tradition is an admirable thing in
many ways but it's not the same as Irish tradition. To be conservative
is to want to conserve something concrete. I might have said "northern
European" and "protestant" instead of "white" and "Christian" --
southern and eastern Europeans ("white ethnics") and Roman Catholics
have tended toward liberalism and big government for somewhat the same
reason Jews and blacks have -- their own traditions are not the actual
dominant traditions established in America, so principles of
traditionalism and conservatism seem to offer them less. That tendency
has grown weaker as official rejection of European and Christian
traditions has grown more decisive but still I think exists to some
extent.
> Given current demographic trends, by the year 2020, Non-whites (i.e.,
> Hispanics and Blacks) will constitute the majority of our "white and
> Christian society."
I think 2020 is accelerating things. In any case, "official policy"
would be a better phrase than "demographic trends." The people have
lost the confidence of the government, so the government is dissolving
them and forming a new people.
> That "uneasy relationship" you refer to is not necessarily based in
> averse morals, but a track record of bigotry and institutionalized
> Jim Crow-ism...
Morals are not only good or bad, but also vary by time, place, nation,
ethnicity, class, etc. Concrete moral traditions vary. The French
outlook is not the same as the Icelandic outlook is not the same as the
Afghan outlook. Calvinists, Catholics and Muslims don't look at things
the same way. All are admirable people, but they don't agree on
everything. That being so why do you think the only possible reason
for uneasy relations between communities with different traditions
occupying the same space is bigotry and institutionalized Jim Crow-ism?
Aren't such relations inevitable?
> (#5. You used the term "homosexuals" before, and surgically omit it
> here. Do I detect subtle retraction? Again, the
> Black/Jew/Homosexual Amoral Generalization --- aye, there's the rub.)
No surgical omission. I identify several general classes that tend to
support the progressive view: educational classes, professional
classes, ethno-religious classes, lifestyle classes. You seem to think
that I believe all these classes are really at bottom the same, or at
least that the ethno-religious classes are the same as the lifestyle
classes. I don't see why.
> > The progressive view appeals to those who gain from central
> > bureaucratic rule. These include the academically credentialed;
> > social scientists and other "experts"; lawyers, especially judges,
> > legal scholars and leaders of the elite bar; elite journalists, whose
> > importance increases as more things are treated as national public
> > policy issues; and religious leaders who identify with national
> > elites and want to be respectable and comfortable as well as
> > prophetic. They also include those with an uneasy relationship to the
> > traditional and informal institutions bureaucratic rule supplants --
> > many blacks, recent immigrants, unmarried persons, secular Jews and
> > artists, and homosexuals and others unable or unwilling to live in
> > accordance with traditional moral standards.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Sun Jun 21 07:22:36 1998
Subject: Senator Lott and Homosexuality
To: president@whitehouse.gov
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 07:22:36 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: senatorlott@lott.senate.gov
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Dear Mr. President:
According to reports, the White House press secretary called Sen. Lott
and those who agree with him "incorrect" and "backward in their
thinking."
If the reports are correct, I must protest the outrageous pandering to
the Sexual Left. Surely, the things that unite us as a people must
include respect for natural institutions such as the family that
precede all political institutions. Without that respect politics
becomes simply the rule of force in the interest of the strongest.
Respect for natural institutions means respect for the customs and
attitudes that support them, such as ordinary sexual morality. That is
why there is *no* society that views sexual relations as the Sexual
Left would have them be, as a purely consensual matter to be defined in
accordance with private taste. I urge you to take such things into
account if you want your administration to be remembered for anything
higher than amoral pursuit of personal advantage.
Thank you for considering my views.
Sincerely,
James Kalb
110 Saint Mark's Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11217
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jul 7 15:53:48 EDT 1998
Article: 12480 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Words on Nisbet?
Date: 6 Jul 1998 21:27:11 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
> But the property of the suicide was forfeit in the old common law.
Was that simply the rule that the felon forfeited his property? If so,
it was an expression of the inconsistency of felony with feudal
obligations rather than evidence of specifically moral let alone
religious condemnation.
> That still applies, in most cases, to his insurance policies.
Not a special rule as to suicide. If you set fire to your house and
destroy it you can't collect the insurance. Ditto if you set fire to
yourself and destroy yourself.
> > Another is that criminal law seems less relevant in the case of an
> > action that is in itself against the interests of the actor as
> > normally understood and does not in itself concretely injure
> > something valuable other than the actor.
>
> That seems an even more property-related moral outlook than the
> traditional one.
Property-related? By "something valuable" I didn't mean monetarily
valuable, and I didn't mean "things" in contrast with persons.
"Something valuable" would include you and me, for example. The
intention to contrast suicide with abortion I thought made that clear.
You may have a point though if "property" is thought to include
self-ownership. The feeling that it's not urgent to treat suicide as
such as illegal no doubt reflects among other things a somewhat liberal
moral sensibility.
> > I don't see how suicide in itself involves the rights of
> > defenseless others.
>
> If the body is not our creation, if it is given to us as a trust,
> then putatively others (certainly the divine interest) are injured.
> And the christian view was that the soul of the suicide was injured;
> to the extent that the suicide is driven by an irrational or evil
> daemon, the soul can be seen as a defenceless other.
The body is part of the agent and so is not an other. The divine
interest is not defenseless, and if the soul is not the agent (if the
soul is a "defenseless other") then suicide is not culpable and so is
neither sin nor crime.
In general -- suicide involves the issue whether a violation of
obligations with respect to one's own well-being should in itself be
treated as criminal. Injury to the interests of others can be thought
of as extrinsic and not sufficient to make suicide criminal in itself,
even though particular suicides, for example suicide of an aircraft
pilot during flight, might be criminal because of the effect on others.
To my mind that consideration is sufficient to distinguish suicide from
abortion. One might of course take the hard-core liberal view that if
the agent chooses to do himself harm, it's his thing and that's cool.
In the alternative one might think of suicide as a crime that punishes
itself.
One can of course also think of suicide in ways that justify treating
it as criminal, for example as a violation of divine order that should
be condemned as authoritatively as possible to prevent scandal and
vindicate God's majesty, as an act of a type likely to injure others
without justification, or whatever. My point though is that since
abortion in its very essence involves injury to some valuable thing
other than the actor it has an important element with which modern
criminal law typically concerns itself that suicide lacks. Therefore
people today even if not personally particularly modernist are more
likely to feel it should be criminal.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Thu Jul 9 13:01:45 EDT 1998
Article: 12495 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Words on Nisbet?
Date: 9 Jul 1998 09:55:36 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <899758631snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <6nrthf$c8o@panix.com> <899937574snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
> But the moral effects of suicide on others are, I should think,
> concrete injuries to something valuable other than the actor.
The effects you mention are not of the essence of the act. We feel
most strongly that something should be a crime if the bad effects of
concern are intrinsic to the act itself rather than contingent. If
someone who was hated by the few people who knew him killed himself but
made it look like an accident those moral effects on others would not
be there but it would still be suicide.
You wanted an explanation why someone might feel more stongly about
making abortion a crime than suicide. The answer I gave is that the
former can be understood as in its very nature an injury to an innocent
and defenseless other, while the latter can be understood as only
contingently an injury to something other than the agent. I don't see
what's wrong with the explanation.
Saying that suicide should be illegal because we didn't create
ourselves and so don't have the _ius utere et abutere_ with respect to
ourselves or because accepting suicide degrades the social valuation of
life is OK, but I thought the discussion was what lay behind the
distinction rather than what the law of suicide should be.
Saying "people who don't want suicide to be a crime tend to believe the
function of law is to deal with conflicts among members of society, and
people like that tend to downplay the moral status of unborn children"
may be true but it's aside the point. It seems to me possible
consistently to accept a generally liberal understanding of law as a
human institution to restrain aggression against others, to view unborn
children and for that matter whooping cranes, the Elgin Marbles and the
Grand Canyon as "others" for that purpose, and to view suicide as an
evil act that is not however punishable by government.
You and others can argue that some other view is better, and in the end
I agree that law and morality can't be separated in the way the view
requires. I thought though that the question was whether any sense at
all can be made of the current outlook of conservatives who are
strongly antiabortion but have no special eagerness to make suicide
itself a crime. I think there can -- they're accepting a compromise
between a nonliberal moral theory and a liberal theory of the state by
not making an issue of the latter where the practical urgency seems
weakest, the case of the criminality of an act that does not by its
essential nature hurt others and that can't be proceded against when it
is successful anyway.
> If the soul and the choosing agent are in no sense distinct, it is
> meaningless to talk of a man risking his immortal soul, gaining the
> whole world and losing his own soul, etc.
To risk one's soul is not to risk something other than oneself, it is
to risk decisively separating what is most truly oneself from its good.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Fri Jul 10 09:25:00 1998
Subject: Re: orthodox jews
To: ao
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 09:25:00 -0400 (EDT)
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Hello!
> 1: the level of committment and energy to maintain their way of life
> entact. Unlike the traditional understanding of community as merely
> a shared life of people living in proximity to one another.. the
> orthodox community is not only ideological... in that its a way of
> life founded on common set of shared ideas.. abiet religious rather
> than philosophical or political... and an act of will, rather than a
> natural act of association... The later point, suggest that orthodox
> community requires a great deal of will and willpower to maintain
> itself. If it loses it will or does not exert great energy
> maintaining its idenity, it will lose it. Thus unlike classical
> understanding of community, the community of the orthodox requires
> committment and a willful determination to preservere against the
> world it finds itself in.
There are differences, but are they so radical? Communities may start
with a natural act of association but that's not enough to constitute
them any more than the sexual impulse by itself constitutes the family.
The communities I can think of have all been based on some combination
of religion, ethnicity and propinquity, and they all have boundaries
that are defended by force and by exclusion of outsiders. Further, all
political communities are based on war and continued willingness to go
to war. In Western Europe the religious and ethnic factors have been
somewhat less obvious than elsewhere because until very recently there
hadn't been any substantial influx of peoples for more than a thousand
years so common ethnicity could be taken for granted, and religious
minorities haven't been much of a factor compared with other places.
The pagans were all converted, by force if need be, the Muslims were
repelled, and there were never that many Jews and the few there were
had been expelled from the lands on the Atlantic seaboard by 1500. The
violation of religious unity by the Protestant Reformation caused
endless wars until the principle of _cuius regio eius religio_ was
established.
It's true that if one of the three factors (religion, ethnicity and
propinquity) is weakened there is more stress on the others. 19th
century religious emancipation meant stress on nationalism, a
combination of ethnicity and propinquity with a little ideology
(religion) stirred in. The current denial that religion and ethnicity
have any legitimate public relevance, combined with decline in
importance of propinquity, has meant extreme emphasis on ideology (PC,
we have zero tolerance around here for racist sexist homophobes like
you, buster) and also outright loss of community, which is OK by our
rulers since they'd rather have a worldwide aggregate that's easy to
manipulate and has no powers of resistance. As to the Orthodox and
Amish, lack of overall geographical propinquity has mean greater
emphasis on religious and ethnic ties. It's also meant emphasis on
local propinquity through rules (requirement of a _minyan_ within
walking distance; forbidding most use of modern transportation and
communications) that make it impossible to live as an Orthodox or Amish
except in a local community of such.
I don't think what distinguishes the Amish and Orthodox is will. One
of the basic Amish ideals is _Gelassenheit_ -- submission or
resignation, letting things go. The corresponding Orthodox ideal is
scholarship. It all seems less assertive than say Americanism or
throne altar and sword or spreading democracy. The life of a community
gets routinized, and in the case of these peoples it relies on
religious law that among other functions maintains their separateness.
The religious law also of course has to define a way of life people
find rewarding. It's worth noting religious law doesn't apply to the
Amish until they get baptized, usually in their early 20s, and 80% of
them after a little freedom and acting up decide they like the
_Ordnung_ best.
> Hence, idenity politics is as much something they must engage in as
> would the left.
What community does not engage in identity politics? To say man is a
social animal is to say his community is part of his identity. The
contractual society, the society one holds at arm's length, is a
fiction.
> Yes, such a community could maintain itself, but sooner or later, it
> being by its nature limited will be confronted by the larger and
> hostile modern world.... now slowly transforming into the universal
> homogenious state.
The question to my mind is whether the universal homogeneous state can
last. I don't think so. For one thing, with the abolition of identity
politics there is no longer any very compelling reason to obey the law,
except personal advantage of course. Nor to put anything at risk in
defense of the state. For another, no one except the stupid or strange
will have any children. After all, one's connection to the world is
not through particular things like the family but through creating
one's individual life within a universal homogeneous order. Maybe
people will have one child, just to round out their experience of life,
but no more. Nor is there a compelling reason why the young should
accept socialization. What after all do they essentially share with
those attempting to socialize them? Abstract humanity, I suppose, but
who's to say whose interpretation of that is best? Why listen to Mom
or Teacher instead of some popular entertainer?
> Let me suggest that the problem is inward directedness and the
> problem of the orthodox is that they can invision no future, but only
> the past. The past is necessary for firm grounding not only in the
> present but for future growth... but life deals with future growth.
What problems does that problem cause? Attempts to manage or
manipulate growth mostly fail anyway. Also, most people most of the
time have been much more concerned with the glorious past than the
grandiose future. It's an outlook that works, it's been tried, it's
probably more natural to us. In all sorts of ways we're more concerned
with what we have now than with what we might have at some other time.
Why not apply that tendency to our general relation to the world?
> If man does not choose to not only explore but colonize the vast
> reaches of space... the end game of the modern project is all but
> ensured.
How many can be involved in such an enterprise? What happens to those
left behind on earth? And once the colony on Arcturus 4 is established
and successful, what then? Abandon it and go someplace else? It seems
unlikely that perpetually going someplace else is the solution to our
problems. It's taking the "nation of immigrants" concept that the
neoconservatives promote -- make America a nation of families who have
discipline and purpose and faith because they're struggling to
establish themselves -- and blowing it up to cosmic scale. Seems
shortsighted to me.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sat Jul 11 20:33:27 EDT 1998
Article: 12510 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Copyright, property and art
Date: 11 Jul 1998 11:31:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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"Nobody's Business" writes:
> It has often seemed to me that CRs target contemporary high art. But
> in the age of “Homo Disney” should the popular arts/entertainments
> escape counterattack?
A reason for the interest in high culture -- philosophy, high art,
serious literature -- is the thought that ideas have consequences, so
if you want to make a difference in the long run you should go where
the most fundamental and powerful ideas, images of life, modes of
sensibility, what have you are found. Another is that if you want to
develop a viewpoint deeply at odds with that dominant in Clinton's
America, Tony Blair's UK, whatever, you've got to go deep, and you need
high culture to do that.
Also, there's been a division of labor. Intellectual CRs talk about
intellectual stuff, pop CRs, Don Wildmon or whoever, make a fuss about
pop culture. It's hard to make a fuss effectually without a mass
following.
An odd feature of the current situation is that everything merges into
everything else. Money and the will to power dissolve all differences.
High and pop culture, fashion, PR, money, spin control, merchandising,
politics -- they're all becoming aspects of an all-purpose science of
manipulation. It's not clear what can be done about it -- it seems
unlikely that joining the manipulators and spin controllers will do the
trick even if the very stiff competition can be beaten.
> First of all, for most of Western civilization, artists have produced
> worthwhile art toiling in obscurity, anonymity and/or poverty.
> Pecuniary motives may be corrupting for art, and pecuniary motives
> have only recently become dominating.
The arts have normally been crafts among other crafts. That situation
gave the artist a definite place in the world so he could get on with
his work and helped maintain coherent standards as the background to
what the artist did. All very helpful. At least since the Renaissance
many artists have become rich and prominent. Money did matter, but not
to the extent that money was what art was about. I believe Titian made
himself quite rich, ditto Rubens, who also became a diplomat, I think
the same for Velasquez, even Rembrandt had lots of money for a while.
They became rich though by reason of their recognized supreme mastery
of something with its own integrity having nothing to do with money or
popularity.
The specific problem now seems to be that art has become too divorced
>from the standards of a definite craft and too much a matter of public
relations, speculative profit, things being what they are said to be,
etc. The standards that are applied tend to be external to what makes
art art -- fashion, political correctness, sensation, and so on.
> I would like to know the history of this institution, I have a
> feeling that artists rode on the coattails of the inventors. Can
> anyone here help me?
Don't really know. In the 19th century English authors complained
about the lack of copyright protection in America. Copyright does help
writers etc. live by their work, and there does seem to be something
wrong with selling a man's work without permission or compensation.
The tendency in recent years has been to lengthen the term, mostly at
the instance of corporate holders, movie studios and so on. I've
written my congressmen in opposition to further extension. It wouldn't
particularly promote production or help the producers and at some point
it seems to me literary works in particular should become common
property, simply part of the language.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Jul 12 16:45:26 EDT 1998
Article: 12515 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Copyright, property and art
Date: 12 Jul 1998 16:43:54 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 69
Message-ID: <6ob76a$d0q@panix.com>
References: <6o7fc7$hn0$1@basement.replay.com> <6o80h4$6l8@panix.com> <6ob19b$h0m$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
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writes:
> This thing, call it "the dominant" I certainly don't have a better
> name for it, has swept all opposition from the field or co-opted it.
> However, I believe history has been defined increasingly by mass-
> movements. Today most intellectuals wear blue jeans.
It's part of the movement toward the universal and homogeneous state.
It's very difficult to fight directly. The key I think though is that
the u. and h. state can't work, because no one can identify with it,
and therefore there is no compelling reason for self-sacrifice or even
obedience to the laws when it seems easier or more profitable to
disobey them. Also, since in the u. and h. order a man's connection to
the world is through either universalistic morality or actualization of
the arbitrary individual will, and not through enduring connection to
particulars, families disappear and no one has children, except maybe a
single one to round out life experience.
Under present circumstances I think it is more important to develop and
maintain an alternative in its integrity than to come up with winning
strategies. Truth is more important than power. The world is full of
winning strategies, that's all anyone cares about, and where does it
get us?
> Is this not what you are doing with your ideas...making a delayed
> reaction fuss? Do they not have consequences? (mostly good ones, I
> would say). To the extent ideas have consequences the popular is
> linked with the high.
I do think truth matters, and it endures, and to the extent I can say
true things and present them persuasively they will somehow in the end
make a practical contribution. Philosophy does I think legislate in
the long run. (Flattery is pleasing, by the way, and always reaches
its goal, whatever its goal may be in this case.)
> How about cutting their funding out from under them?
It's an interesting idea. I do think one would want abolition of
copyright to be just as well as expedient. On the pro-copyright side
one can say it's unjust to use a man's work without compensation. On
the anti-copyright side I suppose you'd have to say there's something
wrong with the idea of property rights in ideas, images, knowledge,
combinations of words, and so on. I know the libertarians have put
thought into the issue and come out both ways. Maybe one could say
that copyright protection could be justly granted, but it's not
required by justice, and under present circumstances allowing ownership
of ideas could too easily be used oppressively, for example by Disney
and so on as part of an attempt to establish a new moral system.
> Dickens? He complained about everything else.
There are references to the issue in Emerson I know. What the
practicalities were and how many people felt the pinch I don't know.
> A second thought- With GATT such a movement would have to be global.
What does GATT say? I would have thought the Internet means that the
country with the least restrictive copyright laws wins, but maybe your
point is that the GATT draftsmen dealt with the issue.
> Another second thought- Lack of copyright laws didn't prevent the
> corruption of Greek theater into Byzantine pornographic shows.
No single legal change is enough for salvation of the world.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Jul 12 21:54:26 EDT 1998
Article: 12521 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Copyright, property and art
Date: 12 Jul 1998 21:38:50 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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"John Carney" writes:
> Overturning copyright laws looks to me like an attempt to win a
> battle against Disney rather than preserve the integrity of existing
> alternatives to the dominant culture.
On the face of it, weakening commercial pop culture would do both.
Traditional culture and for that matter high culture don't seem to me
to depend much at all on copyright. CPC is wholly dependent on it.
> While it is true that copyright laws serve the interests of Corporate
> America in many cases, I do not think they tend to do so in a
> destructive way. Who cares who own Mickey Mouse? I do not think
> that depriving Disney of copyrights in its work would do much in the
> way of improving popular culture.
I agree that the ownership of stuff done in the past doesn't affect
popular culture much. Who if anyone owns stuff done now does matter
though. No copyright would mean no Madonna industry. No integrated
Power Rangers concept, with kids' cartoons, toys, etc. In general, far
less application of manipulative techniques to culture, less treatment
of culture as simply part of the moneymaking art, etc. I'm not sure
what the corresponding losses would be.
> My friends who work independently in the software industry would find
> it very difficult to earn a living if Microsoft was able to simply
> appropriate their work without compensation.
Where would Microsoft be without copyright? Everyone would go GNU.
Obviously work in the computer industry would organize itself
differently in the absence of software. Presumably there would be
consultants rather than software companies and software itself would
propagate by a sort of folklore. It's not wholly clear to me what the
losses in efficiency would be. Maybe they'd be huge, maybe not. I
don't see why the reorganization would be to the disadvantage of
independents, though. I would have thought the reverse.
It's of course very difficult to visualize the ramifications of
abolition or radical restriction of copyright. There must be
theoretical work as to its effects. Anybody know of any? For that
matter, theoretical justifications of having one sort of copyright law
rather than another? For abolition of copyright for cultural
productions but not for things like productivity software?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Jul 12 21:54:27 EDT 1998
Article: 12522 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Copyright, property and art
Date: 12 Jul 1998 21:42:06 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 34
Message-ID: <6obole$1cv@panix.com>
References: <6o7fc7$hn0$1@basement.replay.com> <6o80h4$6l8@panix.com> <6ob19b$h0m$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
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writes:
> >It's part of the movement toward the universal and homogeneous
> >state.
> But is this tendency so strong that will refraining from active
> opposition lead to a shorter lifespan for the U.H.S. ?
I don't suggest refraining from anything, I'm just saying it's more
important to be right than president. Especially when what you are
dealing with basically is the view that there is no authoritative good
transcending actual human goals, that the good is constituted by
whatever people happen to want. You don't beat 'em by joining 'em.
> >The world is full of winning strategies, that's all anyone cares
> >about, and where does it get us?
>
> Elected. What happens after that depends on how wise the elected
> are.
But success is not an all-purpose utility that can be turned to any
end. It rests on something, and that determines what it can be used
for.
> I think most of the time philosophy is used as an after-the-fact
> justification for brute power.
What is called brute power depends on human cooperation, which depends
on what men think makes sense, is good, ought to be done and so on.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Jul 12 21:54:28 EDT 1998
Article: 12523 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Copyright, property and art
Date: 12 Jul 1998 21:49:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 12
Message-ID: <6obp3s$1ou@panix.com>
References: <6o7fc7$hn0$1@basement.replay.com> <6o80h4$6l8@panix.com> <6ob19b$h0m$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <6ob76a$d0q@panix.com> <6obbo7$al2$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <6obofa$18p@panix.com>
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In <6obofa$18p@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
>Obviously work in the computer industry would organize itself
>differently in the absence of software.
While what I said here is no doubt true, I intended to say "copyright"
instead of "software."
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jul 14 07:10:09 EDT 1998
Article: 12528 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Copyright, property and art
Date: 13 Jul 1998 07:40:41 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 27
Message-ID: <6ocrnp$1ue@panix.com>
References: <6o7fc7$hn0$1@basement.replay.com> <6o80h4$6l8@panix.com> <6ob19b$h0m$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <6ob76a$d0q@panix.com> <6obbo7$al2$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <6obofa$18p@panix.com> <6obqlc$opt$1@netnews.upenn.edu>
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In <6obqlc$opt$1@netnews.upenn.edu> "John Carney" writes:
>Somehow, despite widespread technology for copying audio onto tapes
>and lax enforcement of copyright in this area, the Madonna industry
>survives.
I think it does make a difference that mass market distributors can't
sell pirated CDs, etc.
>By disposition I am hesitant to overturn the existing rules of the
>social order, even when these can seem unfair.
Copyright is in a sense a basic institution, but is it more so than the
welfare state, equal opportunity laws, or the principle of rejecting
catholicism as a system of thought with something legitimate to say
about public life? Its importance is quite a recent matter, and is
plainly intimately connected with the rise to power of the Knowledge
Class of sophists and calculators. Copyright is what arms that class
with the powers of ownership as well as those of position and informal
influence. To the extent that class aims to supplant all other social
powers I'm not sure that respect for basic institutions should lead one
to support rather recent developments that entrench its power.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jul 14 07:10:10 EDT 1998
Article: 12531 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Copyright, property and art
Date: 13 Jul 1998 21:00:14 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 28
Message-ID: <6oeaiu$qmp@panix.com>
References: <6o7fc7$hn0$1@basement.replay.com> <6o80h4$6l8@panix.com> <6ob19b$h0m$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <6ob76a$d0q@panix.com> <6obbo7$al2$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <6obofa$18p@panix.com> <6obqlc$opt$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <6ocrnp$1ue@panix.com> <6od3qj$e62$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <900363707snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk>
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In <900363707snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> raf391@hormel.bloxwich.demon.co.uk (rafael cardenas) writes:
>Is it true that laws are uncopyrighted? I don't think they are here.
Absolutely. You can quote laws all you want, inscribe them on your
heart if you wish. Copyright seems rather at odds with the nature of
law, which is after all to be promulgated and made known as extensively
as possible. I'd be astounded if UK laws were copyrighted.
One interesting point is that legal documents, contracts and the like,
aren't copyrighted. Every now and then someone tries it but it's at
odds with the usual practice. Lawyers therefore plagarize innocently
and constantly. If a lawyer drafts something and it's *not* plagarized
in the next similar transaction he tends to look for an explanation.
Was there something wrong with the way he did it that the next guy
noticed?
>Yet does not the publisher have copyright in his organization of
>the material, even if not in the material itself?
Sure. Also if he adds notes, explanations, whatever, those are
copyrighted. Naturally he hopes he'll be quoted at length by
practitioners though.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jul 14 07:10:12 EDT 1998
Article: 12533 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Copyright, property and art
Date: 14 Jul 1998 07:08:34 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 38
Message-ID: <6ofe7i$1u7@panix.com>
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John Carney writes:
"The welfare state and the equal opportunity regime seem to operate
less as baseline rules for social interaction than as occassions for
the exercise of state power. Each has an extensive administrative
apparatus dedicated to enforcing a set of rules around which private
individuals may not contract. Copyright protection, although
occassionally enforced by police power in the form of anti-piracy laws,
is more of a basic rule."
Equal opportunity principles are I think felt as baseline rules for
social interaction, more so than the copyright system, and enforcement
through private litigation and for that matter public shaming rituals
are very important and would I think be sufficient for maintenance of
the basic system. Inability to contract out of the rules doesn't seem
to me to make them less fundamental to our current society.
Your idea of baseline rules seems to leave out government as a player.
Otherwise it could be a baseline rule that people can rely on society
acting through the state to help them out in time of need. Many people
*do* consider it a baseline rule, in social fact or at least as a moral
imperative.
Your treatment is OK if you want a special definition of baseline rule
as part of the articulation of a basically libertarian outlook, but I
thought the issue was whether it's wise to do something radical to
social institutions as basic as copyright. If your point is that it's
OK when the institution is not a baseline rule, why is that the
distinction? PC seems to be a baseline rule of social interaction,
it's mostly informally defined and enforced, and it's important in
establishing what kind of social world we live in, so it's no doubt
"basic." Certainly its proponents consider it so. Is it something one
should avoid meddling with?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Jul 17 07:24:10 EDT 1998
Article: 12544 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Copyright, property and art
Date: 16 Jul 1998 21:13:37 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 12
Message-ID: <6om8g1$h2i@panix.com>
References: <6o7fc7$hn0$1@basement.replay.com> <6o80h4$6l8@panix.com> <6ob19b$h0m$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <35ad2edb.22250488@news.srv.ualberta.ca> <6olgae$6kn$1@excalibur.flash.net>
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writes:
> I was responding to Jim Kalb's post about the idea that the high was
> more influential in the long run, by trying to say that ideas flow
> both ways today.
The low influences the high when the high permits it to do so.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Fri Jul 17 07:24:11 EDT 1998
Article: 12551 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Copyright, property and art
Date: 17 Jul 1998 07:23:14 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 32
Message-ID: <6onc72$lc2@panix.com>
References: <6o7fc7$hn0$1@basement.replay.com> <6o80h4$6l8@panix.com> <6ob19b$h0m$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <6ob76a$d0q@panix.com> <6obbo7$al2$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <6obofa$18p@panix.com> <6obqlc$opt$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <6ocrnp$1ue@panix.com> <6od3qj$e62$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <6ofe7i$1u7@panix.com> <6om9vl$11m$1@netnews.upenn.edu>
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In <6om9vl$11m$1@netnews.upenn.edu> "John Carney" writes:
>In my experience repealing rules over which people have power
>(contract, enforcement through litigation) causes more disruption than
>repealing administrative rules. So I think it is advisable to be more
>cautious when repealing copyright laws than welfare entitlements.
Still, subject matter is different. Welfare determines practical
effects of individual and family functioning or nonfunctioning,
copyright the division of power within the culture and software
industries. Possibly disruption would be more troubling in one setting
than the other.
>This applies, I suspect, even to legal rules such as
>nondiscrimination: we weaken it by ignoring it (discriminating in ways
>we want where we think we can get away with it, refusing to complain
>about discrimination by others even against ourselves, and not
>engaging in the shaming rituals levelled in conjunction with legal
>sanctions against discriminators).
There is something troublesome about fighting bad laws by ignoring
them. Maybe it makes sense in the current situation in which there are
as many laws as there are, in which the law wants comprehensively to
remake the human world in accordance with bad principles, and in which
those who favor that ambition and made the laws what they are support
"civil disobedience" when it goes their way. Does anyone know of any
thoughtful discussions?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Sun Jul 19 08:33:09 EDT 1998
Article: 12567 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maybe One
Date: 19 Jul 1998 08:32:43 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
Message-ID: <6osp1b$ra6@panix.com>
References: <6o164r$v1m$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <900025330snz@bloxwich.demon.co.uk> <6o6gaa$7hi$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <35A6EA8A.2891@gstis.net> <6o8272$bol$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <35a8c247.724295@news.xs4all.nl> <6obaqv$l6t$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <35A948A4.397B@gstis.net> <6obs5u$apv$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <35AC426B.36CC@gstis.net> <6om09h$7q9$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <35B0EF86.3556@gstis.net>
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In <35B0EF86.3556@gstis.net> FELIX writes:
>The reason managers recruit women and minorities is because they are
>FORCED to. Their performance reviews are in part based on "how well
>they implement the companies equal opportunity policy".
I think Mr. Carney is talking about top mangement, the people who
establish the policies that guide the reviews, rather than middle
management. In the case of top management class interests and
identification -- the relation of members to the formal economic and
political system -- are strong enough to trump ethnicity, sex, what
have you. When you rule the world it goes to your head, and you don't
feel you have much in common with folks back home. And it is to the
advantage of the dominant economic and political system to reduce all
mankind to an aggregate of productive cogs and consumption units to be
dealt with technically. Hence the top management emphasis on
annihilation of all particularity. After all, it strengthens their
hand if they don't have competing principles of social organization to
contend with. It makes the world ever so much more rational, with
their version of rationality in control.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
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Reply-To: newman Discussion List
Sender: newman Discussion List
From: Jim Kalb
Subject: Re: First the bricks and mortar--then the building...
To: NEWMAN@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <04c801bdb1e8$9eb62c70$c7f463ce@sethwill> from "Seth Williamson"
at Jul 17, 98 09:08:46 pm
Status: RO
> ABORTION AS A BOURGEOIS VIRTUE
Good point. The _summum bonum_ is getting whatever you happen to want,
and the virtues are the habits and dispositions that order one's life
toward that highest end. Among leftists the outlook slides into
fantasies of reconstructing reality on a grand scale, but Republicans
take a more individual nuts-and-bolts private-property approach -- I
fix things so that as a practical matter they are durably what they
should be for me and mine, and that means money, comfort, security,
control, social respect.
> a USA Today column by one educated suburban mom who could write this
> sentence about her two teen-age daughters with no apparent angst:
> "They have pretty much the same expectations I did when I was their
> age: to finish college, have sexual adventures, become professionals,
> raise families and think for themselves."
This appalling sentence says it all. Still one wonders whether the
whole picture really hangs together. What will actually happen to the
daughters? Will the affluent suburban lifestyle be a sufficient ideal
to produce an orderly life generation after generation?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Sun Jul 12 16:38:09 1998
Subject: Re: radicals
To: ae
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 16:38:09 -0400 (EDT)
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Status: RO
> A dear friend, also a conservative, has alienated himself from the
> tradition of Christian religion because it does not follow with his
> applied logic and reason. He posits that we should shelve our "safety
> net" and accept the "cold, hard truth" which is really his nihilistic
> and materialist approach to social issues. Doesn't it sound fairly
> radical to you?
Certainly it seems wrong to say society should be ordered solely by
reference to cold hard truths since they aren't the only truths of
public importance. I don't think government safety nets are required
by Christianity or conservatism though. The sort of thing we have now
is a rahter recent development. There's some stuff in the sections of
the FAQ dealing with economic issues and conservatism in a liberal age
that's relevant. The liberal welfare state is I think a big problem
for both conservatism and Christianity. How to extricate us from the
situation we're in is of course a big problem as well.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Wed Jul 15 08:25:24 1998
Subject: Re: chat
To: ae
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 08:25:24 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
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Status: RO
> Someone recently said that it's not expanding marriage but destroying
> it. How true!
I got it and agree on the whole with the points made. Homosexual
"marriage" is the deconstruction of marriage as homosexuality is the
deconstruction of gender and acceptance of sodomy the deconstruction of
sexual morality. If those things are accepted it becomes impossible to
say what a family is, what it's for, what its members can expect of each
other, what lines should be drawn in sexual matters except those of
arbitrary will. It's a very bad thing.
> Who were your influences and who do you regularly read?
Influences include Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Lao Tse, Chuangtse, Ibn
Khaldun, Pascal, Burke, Sade, Simone Weil. An odd list I know. The
writers I read change from time to time depending on current direction
of interest. The publications I subscribe to include _Chronicles_,
_Modern Age_, _The Scorpion_, _The Public Interest_.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Wed Jul 15 08:53:24 1998
Subject: Re: newman_l, Oakeshott, etc.
To: R
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 08:53:24 -0400 (EDT)
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Status: RO
> I've noticed a strange dearth of discussion about Michael Oakeshott
> on the web. Any ideas?
He's a minority taste and has his own way of thinking. In order to
discuss him you'd have to have several people who wanted to and were
quite familiar with his works. Net discussions are usually more
slovenly.
From jk Fri Jul 17 11:35:07 1998
Subject: Re: chat
To: ae
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 11:35:07 -0400 (EDT)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
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Status: RO
> I'll certainly check those others whom you've studied
Should mention that some of them aren't at all conservative. Lao Tse
and Chuangtse are romantic mystics; Irving Babbitt has an interesting
(not favorable) discussion of them in an appendix to his _Rousseau and
_Romanticism_. They did however influence me. One quality of
c{nservatism is opposition to a technological understanding of society
and appreciation of the importance of things that can't quite be said,
at least not directly. Those writers are certainly helpful on those
points. Sade is of course a monster, but he has the virtue of
developing the implications of a fully desacralized understanding of
the world with the lack of concern for what people might think that one
would expect of a nobleman. In his account of social devolution in
b{s. viii and ix of the _Republic_ Plato describes how the democratic
soul that treats all desires as equal turns into the tyrannical soul
and Sade fills out the picture. I wouldn't really recommend him to
anyone, since he's so evil, but your question wasn't whether I'd put
him on a reading list.
The important thing with the classics is for people actually to read
them and think about them. If the universities are the sole or even
main custodians of basic aspects of intellectual culture intellectual
culture is dead. It's not something that can be bureaucratized, and
the university system is intellectual bureaucracy. Formal education
and scholarship are good things but they are subsidiary rather than
constitutive of a way of life. As to Dershowitz, people do get tied up
in weird knots when they try to be feminist.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Fri Jul 17 17:51:01 1998
Subject: Re: Molnar & Modern Age
To: R
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 17:51:01 -0400 (EDT)
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> There is a continuity to most of the critiques of modernity from the
> right.
I think so. The Right is the response of common sense and experience
(sometimes put into refined theoretical form) to the Left. The Left
can't bear any authority but its own will and in the long run that
means that man must be understood to construct the world and himself.
Common sense and experience have some obvious things to say about that,
although phrasing might be different. Hence the continuity.
> I've never read any of Molnar's books, though I have read many
> articles by him.
His books on utopia, authority, and God and the knowledge of reality
are I think well worth reading.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Sat Jul 18 06:41:47 1998
Subject: Re: hi
To: ao
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 06:41:47 -0400 (EDT)
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> I got a complaint sent by someone charging my site advanced racism
> and bigotry...
Your site advances racism and bigotry? Probably you have a quotation
from T.S. Eliot somewhere.
The complaint is no doubt correct since "hate," "racism," "bigotry" and
the like now have technical meanings having to do with social
arrangements not rationally constructed and justified as giving people
as much and as equally as possible whatever they happen to want.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Tue Jul 21 09:31:23 EDT 1998
Article: 12583 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maybe One
Date: 21 Jul 1998 09:04:34 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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FELIX writes:
> greedy plutocrats (a term I prefer to "managerial class") ... The
> last 30 years have witnessed an unprecedented concentration of wealth
> and power unfettered by any national government. The simultaneous
> freeing of currency from fixed exchange rates and the explosion in
> telecommunications has freed capital from the bonds of the state.
> The capitalists are now dictating their terms to both the workers and
> to governments in substantially the same way they did in the 19th
> century. We now have inequalities of wealth and income more like the
> 1890's than James Burnham's 1940's.
"Managerial class" rather than "plutocrats" still seems right because
there is the separation between management and ownership that defines
the latter. I don't think the economic etc. changes have generally
been to the benefit of existing large enterprises and accumulations
(GM, IBM, USX), which is what I would expect in the case of an
intelligent plutocracy. It's not money and possession as such that
rule, but position, intelligence, manipulative skill, the ability to
get financial and political backing from others. Those are it seems to
me natural conditions for domination by a managerial class. At first
they lead to a competitive struggle as among rival takeover firms but
thereafter at the highest levels to perception of common interests and
alliances leading to a world state.
The changes have made life more difficult for established interests --
fat cats hated Michael Milken and the rest of them, and don't much like
foreign competition. The new conditions have enabled the creation of
large new fortunes, as well as a large yuppie class that has prospered
like samurai during a time of troubles, through possession of skills
that are useful in times of disorder and opportunity. A sign of the
times is the emphasis by banks on fee-based income rather than lending.
If capital rather than the qualities of a managerial class were the key
the emphasis would be reversed.
Particular developments of course help some rich people but also have
other functions that it seems to me are cumulatively more important.
Immigration helps Bill Gates but also advances the interests of the
managerial class as such since it makes it impossible for there to be a
cohesive people capable of self-government, and contributes to the goal
of a world without borders organized comprehensively under the
supervision of transnational bureaucracies. The case is clearest I
think in the case of the moral and social principles that are now
promulgated by all respectable authorities and so can reasonably be
understood as an idealization of ruling class interests -- antiracism,
multiculturalism, feminism, abolition of standards of sexual conduct as
intolerant, and so on. These principles do not I think give any
specific advantage to capital, since capital aspires to money and
security rather than to a rule that is so comprehensive as to displace
all other institutions including the family, but they do have the
effect of making the managerial class the sole principle of social
order.
> The board of directors (including all the window-dressing women and
> minorities) instructs the HR department to implement an affirmative
> action policy. This is done for one of two reasons: 1) to avoid or
> comply with an EEOC lawsuit. 2) to break the union seniority rules or
> pass over / force out long time employees with higher wages.
On the whole I think EEOC requirements are moneylosers. You may get
rid of high-priced A in favor of somewhat cheaper B, but B will be
overpaid for what he can do, and you also undercut employee cohesion
(which normally is more helpful than harmful to employers) and the
ability to deal with personnel issues rationally. As to the other
reason, why do you suppose the legal system provides for EEOC lawsuits?
Why is it so shameful (as well as financially dangerous) to do anything
that would expose oneself to such a suit? Is it really the interests
of capital that are being served, or some other principle of rule?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Tue Jul 21 09:29:00 1998
Subject: Re: Wanted: "Free Society" References
To: al
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 09:29:00 -0400 (EDT)
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Hello!
Glad my page has been of some help to you.
The names that come to mind are Lord Devlin, a law lord in England I
think, and Robert George at Princeton. The first had a theory of
legislation and morals that I think he developed in the 50s and was
(substantively) praised as "creepy" in a _New Yorker_ article written
by some clone or other that I read recently. I've only read bits of
what he wrote and don't know what he says about rights and freedoms
though. Robert George has a recent book that I think deals extensively
with the issue of freedom and morals legislation, although I haven't
read it.
If I were researching the matter I would also look at the writings of
academics who participated in the November 1996 _First Things_
symposium that caused a fuss about because it touched on the question
of the effect of the apparently established principle that abortion
etc. is fundamental to the American regime on the legitimacy of that
regime. As respectable American academics they are basically liberals
who don't reallly disagree that ordered freedom is the purpose of
politics, so they presumably will have dealt somewhere with the issue
of freedom and legislated morality. In addition to George the names
that come to mind are Hadley Arkes and Russell Hittenger.(sp?)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Tue Jul 21 12:05:16 1998
Subject: Re: flagburning
To: ae
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 12:05:16 -0400 (EDT)
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> Can you direct me to any pieces that you may have contriubted to
> this debate?
> I believe that we'd share the same opinions. Constitutional prohibition
> of flag desecration is an extreme measure. The supreme court should
> allow our states to maintain or enact statutes prohibiting such acts and
> restrain any of its own activist impulses. I think flag burning is
> tantamount to fighting words and yelling fire in a movie theater and
> doesn't merit any federal protection. But just like the constitution
> doesn't specify any prohibition of pubic intoxication, we can put the
> onus on states and municipalities, in the true spirit of federalism, to
> enforce their own standards of public conduct. What do you think?
I haven't written on it. The Supreme Court has no general authority to
protect free speech against the states in the first place. Just read
what the First Amendment actually says -- it forbids *Congress* from
doing certain things. The first case holding it applicable to the
states was I think in the 1920s. So Supreme Court rulings on the
subject are a clear violation of federalism.
As to the merits, I don't think antidesecration laws violate freedom of
speech or press any more than say copyright or libel. You can still
say what you want when and where you want. You just can't express
yourself by doing something to a basic national symbol. If someone
wants to argue the laws are a bad ideal that's OK but to say they're
unconstitutional violations of free speech strikes me as extremist.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Tue Jul 21 12:30:03 1998
Subject: Re: Breeding Programs on arc
To: jc
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 12:30:03 -0400 (EDT)
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> I would only add that 'greed' (desire for money or things) is hardly
> the primary characteristic of the managerial class; other motivations
> seem to predominate.
In the end I think it's the ultimate strong motivation, a combination
of power and religion, the desire to make oneself God. If reality is
socially constricted, and you and I determine social order because
we've destroyed all sources of order preceding our will, then you and I
collectively create reality, call the world into being and make it what
it is. The administrative state is the routinization of the charisma
of the divine ego.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From news.panix.com!not-for-mail Wed Jul 22 20:50:48 EDT 1998
Article: 12585 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: news.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Maybe One
Date: 22 Jul 1998 20:46:11 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 177
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FELIX writes:
> The Dow Industrials have led the overall market for quite some time
> and it has been earnings driven. GM has been highly profitable as
> they move more and more production offshore (though not as quickly as
> they would like). IBM has been doing quite well lately despite this
> flat last quarter. They are still eight or nine times larger than
> Microsoft.
Big well-managed companies usually manage to adapt to new conditions, I
think we can agree. The issue though, or at least one very important
issue, is whether the new conditions give a special advantage to
existing big companies -- big accumulations of capital -- so that it
makes sense to think of them as manifestations of plutocracy. That I
don't see. GM may be able to make its way in the world market by
following cheap labor, but they made their way even better in the older
less exposed US market, back when they made cars in Detroit and their
problem was keeping their share of the US market below 50% so
government antitrust lawyers would leave them alone.
Further -- who owns GM or IBM? Not the chairman, and not any
individual or group of individuals who have anything to say about how
the company is run. CEOs have power and get paid tons of money not
because they own anything but because they manage. To the extent they
must answer to shareholders it's not really shareholders who call them
to account but other managers, those who manage financial institutions.
So to the extent the way to understand what's going on is to find the
ruling class and figure out what their interests are, it still seems to
me that the ruling class is the managerial class and in the long run
they will try to bring the world into conformity with their own
interests rather than those of their employers, abstract entities like
corporations or the millions of silent partners who actually put up or
have equitable claim to the money. Why should corporate managers care
more about corporations and shareholders than politicians do about
their constituents?
> Look, the big boys had some hiccups during the instability and high
> inflation that followed floating exchange rates but the bond gods
> prevailed and now ANY government that tries to inflate is mercilessly
> hammered in the currency markets.
We can agree that in periods of transition big boys get hiccups. My
basic point is that the biggest boy is the state, and when rationalized
economic methods break down local arrangements the ultimate outcome is
very likely to be a more extensive, powerful and pervasive state. That
happened after 19th c. industrialism, it's happening in the EEC now, we
can see the beginnings of the system that will be applicable to us in
America in the transnational regulatory regimes established by "free
trade" and "human rights" treaties. Maybe some classicist can tell me
whether it happened in the Roman Empire as well.
It seems to me that the radical separation of management and control in
modern economic life contributes to that result by placing power in the
hands of the managerial rather than the moneyed class. (I know there's
a lot of overlap between the two -- my point is that if someone is both
rich and a manager it tends to be in the latter capacity that he holds
power.) Management of course likes money, but it seems to me in the
long run power is a stronger motive, ultimately the power of being God.
Which is I think the nature of the state, to become God on earth.
After all, if reality is socially constructed, which is the doctrine
our bureaucracies of knowledge teach, certainly with respect to things
like morals that determine the human world, and you run the state and
succeed in abolishing all other social powers, so that you can socially
construct whatever you feel like socially constructing, haven't you
really become God?
> Do Tony Blair and Bill Clinton (members of the "managerial class" if
> anyone is) have any real convictions or exercise any real power other
> than further ruination of the white race on the cultural front? I
> think not. Both are totally beholden to the special interests who
> elected them. Clinton is shamelessly paying off the Red Chinese.
> His Department of Energy and its branches like BPA and TVA are still
> charging ahead in support of energy de-regulation.
Several comments. First, I consider corruption a mitigating force in
the current regime. The more vulgar crimes Clinton and his appointees
commit and the more incompetent they are the better. The alternative
is rule by Hilary and her clones. Secondly, corruption is not the same
as plutocracy. Paying off the Chinese Communists is corrupt but not
plutocratic. Even a bribe from a particular capitalistic interest is
not necessarily plutocratic since it is more likely to be for something
that helps the particular interest than for capital in general.
Further, beyond the corruption there is I think an overall tendency of
policy toward a world managed for the sake of stability, economic
efficiency, and at least moderately diffused prosperity. It's a long
process constructing such a world, and it's easier establishing
management powers than applying them successfully when it's world
domination that is in question, but I think it's the goal and in spite
of all hiccups overall goals have a powerful cumulative effect.
Capital like other influential powers generally supports that goal
since capital typically likes security and predictability and therefore
strong and pervasive government. One problem with the "capital rules"
theory is that capital has conflicting interests and only cares for its
own, and so is too shortsighted and narrow of vision to rule.
Intelligent capitalists know it.
> Michael Milken was a speculator. Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and
> Genorge Soros are tycoons. They count their money with several more
> significant zeroes than Mr. Milken.
Soros is more of a speculator than Milken was. Milken made $400
million one year as compensation for providing services. A few years
like that and you start talking real money, although the SEC and Kimba
Wood, a well brought-up girl who took what people expected of her very
seriously, put the kibosh on it. Look at Soros' political activities
by the way. He favors markets, but not unlimited rule by markets. He
consults with eminent academic political philosophers and other NWO
theoreticians in planning his activities. He's an intelligent
capitalist.
> Samurai enforce the will of those in power; they do not weild it but
> are weilded by those with it.
The prosperity of samurai is a sign that those in power are not
securely so, and that prosperity is often converted to outright rule.
That's what warlordism and for that matter shogunism is about.
> Wealth and power is distributed over an increasingly steeper pyramid.
> The exercise of that power from the top of the pyramid is becoming
> more direct.
A steep pyramid of power is consistent and in fact promotes rule by the
managerial class, by making that class smaller and more self-aware.
All that's needed for the managerial theory is that the two pyramids
(wealth and power) be different, which I think is the case. Bill Gates
is a much richer man than the CEOs of IBM or GM, but he's not more
powerful. His wealth is an interesting fact about him personally, but
it's not the source of his power since he would have substantially the
same power even if he owned much less Microsoft stock.
> Even medium sized companies now issue their own paper -- with
> fee-based help. Thanking Michael Milken ;-)
Which means lenders are in a far weaker position to tell borrowers what
to do. They still have money but their power is less. Money has
become more a commodity and less the social position that it is in a
plutocracy. Compare the traditional situation in Germany where
particular banks provide financing to particular companies and are
therefore enormously influential.
> Production capital is being shifted from those countries which
> practice such degeneracy to those which do not.
The NWO makes every place the same. One intended function of human
rights treaties and the like is to transfer the functions of the family
to the state and abolish gender as a social institution worldwide.
Consider the UN conferences on women, on population control, etc., and
the US position at those conferences. For that matter, read the
relevant international conventions, on discrimination against women, on
children's rights, whatever. You don't see GM lobbying against such
things. If the _New York Times_ counts as a ruling class organ, they
regularly run puff pieces on the struggle of homosexuals in Russia,
Zimbabwe, or wherever for their rights, on the fight for feminism in
the third world, on the new sexual freedom in China, what have you.
> There is of course a blatant cabal of "governmental class",
> anti-white, Jewish - Bolshevik traitors in the media, government, and
> the academy who have lately joined in an unholy alliance with big
> capital on certain issues to further advance their own power. The
> sooner these people are rooted out and destroyed the better
A basic issue is whether bad things result from a particular class of
bad people who can be eliminated, putting things right, or whether they
result from more abstract circumstances. I think the latter. Our
current situation is I think rather clearly implicit in John Locke and
the conception of a society based on individual consent. In bks. viii-
ix of the _Republic_ Plato accurately describes the nature of
democratic consumer society, its genesis in oligarchic commercial
society, and its degeneration into tyranny. Neither had to bring Jews
or Bolsheviks into the picture to describe the basic concepts and
tendencies involved.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
From jk Wed Apr 1 14:03:27 1998
Subject: Re: your mail
To: p
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 14:03:27 -0500 (EST)
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> Why not use the label "the modern autocracy" ruled by an "autocratic
> elite", (as the old European nobility).
That's good, since "autocracy" simply means government by a
"self-ruler," or government responsible to no one, but somehow I want
something better. Other possibilities I've seen:
guardian democracy
pornocracy (government by whores)
student government (i.e., popular government as to things the real
authorities don't much care about)
Maybe we should have a contest, a year's subscription to the Federal
Register (a daily compilation of public documents) or some European
equivalent for whoever comes up with the best one.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"I read with some joy of the auspicious signs of the coming days, as they
glimmer already through poetry and art, through philosophy and science,
through church and state." (Emerson)
From jk Fri Jul 24 16:40:35 1998
Subject: Re: Maybe One
To: a.
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 16:40:35 -0400 (EDT)
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> Was that you in the last scorpion? Could I ask you a US-based
> question. Someone mentioned to me that the majority of the Hispanic
> community in California were in favour of proposition 209. is that
> right?
It was me.
My impression is that at least initially a good majority (more than 55
percent) of Hispanics supported 209. That support weakened as time
went on, apparently because of the extraordinary attacks on the measure
by the political class especially by its Hispanic members and their
usual allies. My impression is that it ended up with a minority but a
very substantial minority of the Hispanic vote.
Really, no-one much except the ruling classes and their activist
hangers-on favors immigration on the scale we have it now. Their vote
trumps everything else, though, and among them restrictions on
immigration are recognized as capitulation to the principle of
legitimate particularism. That just can't be tolerated. For them it
is quite literally indistinguishable from Naziism. Like so many other
things, I might add.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com and http://www.panix.com/~jk)
"Nothing conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry
interests -- in one word, so anti-poetic -- as the life of a man in the
United States." (Tocqueville)
Do let me know if you have comments of any kind.
Back to my archive of posts.